Difference in days between two dates in Java?

Question

I need to find the number of days between two dates: one is from a report and one is the current date. My snippet:

  int age=calculateDiffer         


        

Answer 1

The diff / (24 * etc) does not take Timezone into account, so if your default timezone has a DST in it, it can throw the calculation off.

This link has a nice little implementation.

Here is the source of the above link in case the link goes down:

/** Using Calendar - THE CORRECT WAY**/  
public static long daysBetween(Calendar startDate, Calendar endDate) {  
  //assert: startDate must be before endDate  
  Calendar date = (Calendar) startDate.clone();  
  long daysBetween = 0;  
  while (date.before(endDate)) {  
    date.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, 1);  
    daysBetween++;  
  }  
  return daysBetween;  
}  

and

/** Using Calendar - THE CORRECT (& Faster) WAY**/  
public static long daysBetween(final Calendar startDate, final Calendar endDate)
{
  //assert: startDate must be before endDate  
  int MILLIS_IN_DAY = 1000 * 60 * 60 * 24;  
  long endInstant = endDate.getTimeInMillis();  
  int presumedDays = 
    (int) ((endInstant - startDate.getTimeInMillis()) / MILLIS_IN_DAY);  
  Calendar cursor = (Calendar) startDate.clone();  
  cursor.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_YEAR, presumedDays);  
  long instant = cursor.getTimeInMillis();  
  if (instant == endInstant)  
    return presumedDays;

  final int step = instant < endInstant ? 1 : -1;  
  do {  
    cursor.add(Calendar.DAY_OF_MONTH, step);  
    presumedDays += step;  
  } while (cursor.getTimeInMillis() != endInstant);  
  return presumedDays;  
}